Flutterby™! : Happy Tree Friends 2002-05-28 15:38:23+00

Happy Tree Friends

2002-05-28 15:38:23+00 by TC 8 comments

Just in time to be late for memorial day we have the flash film happy tree friends. Now just because some of you will take this the wrong way, I'll say this is not a political statement about vets from me, the only area where this resonates with me is with treatment of cute furry creatures.

Well, now that sucks. It says I need the Flash 4 Player. Apparently, the Flash 6 Player isn't good enough for them...

Perhaps somebody here can explain the point to me. Was there anything beyond the random gory animated violence that I'm missing?

Hmmm I doubt I could actually explain it if it is not self evident to you but here goes, Dark humor often depends on a schism of "normal" reality. Like for instance a group of cute cuddly creatures with happy music. One would naturally expect them do cute things like sing songs and dance around the camp fire. Now the foil in the story line is that one of the cuties has a war flash back and acts out of character. Flippy could have just pulled a 12 ton anvil out of his pocket and dropped it on the Scooby gang but it seems in this kind of humor the more sensational the schism the more effective the response. I'm not sure if it is a evolved defense response of the brain but when it sees something that isn't right quite often the response is laughter. I don't know if that helps but humor is one of those ineffable nuances of life.

The two paradigms of 'cutesy cartoon' and 'adult media arena' are usually so different from each other (for example, the first is usually so much more limited in the how sadistically or graphically violent the content can be) that your entire set of expectations are different when you watch each of them. Happy Tree Friends is funny because the brain tends to settle into the simpler or the two states whenever it can (a kind of naturally evolved 'Occam's razor' whereby brains always try to take the simplest explanation, or in this case, that you never stay more alert or imaginative than your expectations for the immediate future decree that you must). In this case, the brain is lulled into feeling that its expectations can safely arise from a 'cutesy' mindset.

...But then the brain has to quickly move between these two states whenever the set-within-the-set which is 'cutesy cartoon' suddenly steps outside itself into the big scary world (set) of the 'adult media arena'. I think the ego has a bit of trouble maintaining an integrated self for a moment when this leap happens. It has to make you feel like the same person, even though your mindset has just had to alter. Humour (or rather 'laughter') is just the product of a quick squirt of chemicals to let the brain paper over this momentary wrench. I'm not sure if I've spelt 'arena' and 'wrench' correctly there. I think 'paradigms' is OK though. I'm not 100% sure as www.dictionary.com is broken at the mo'.

P.S. I am dimly aware of how there's all this stuff out there, but I've just started getting back into smoking pot most of the time again, so I'm hardly in the thick of it. Anyway, I live in Poland now, and I've hardly got any money, so unless anyone has a better suggestion, I'm just going to smoke my grass, do the odd Gurdgief exercise, and teach English till either my brain or my lungs rot (whicher goes first). Of course, if imagination and the gift for making analogies is worth something to someone, and it doesn't involve bureaucracy, I'll take any suggestions for different life-styles.

The two paradigms of 'cutesy cartoon' and 'adult media arena' are usually so different from each other (the first is usually so much more limited in the how sadistically or graphically violent the content can be) that your entire set of expectations are different when you watch each of them. Happy Tree Friends is funny because the brain tends to settle into the simpler or the two states whenever it can (a kind of naturally evolved 'Occam's razor' whereby brains always try to take the simplest explanation, or in this case, that you never stay more alert or imaginative than your expectations for the immediate future decree that you must). In this case, the brain is lulled into feeling that its expectations can safely arise from a 'cutesy' mindset.

Hey Robert, you might want to join the idrama mailing list, even though it's pretty quiet right now. Lot's of proffesionals in the field that might have suggestions/conntacts. Failing that you seem to be fullfilling two of my philosophical tennants #1 life is finite have fun while your at it. #2 make the universe better because you are here. good luck and your right dictionary.com is down $&*$%& it! It's my second favorite tool.

I think the problem I'm having with the cartoon is that it falls under my 'Southpark' filter -- cutesy characters involved in gratuitous violence. I've seen enough of it that it alone doesn't do it for me anymore.

The two paradigms of 'cutesy cartoon' and 'adult media arena' are usually so different from each other